2nd district cop accused of teen's motel sex assault

Sub­urb­an po­lice ar­res­ted a North­east patrol of­ficer last week after they in­ter­rup­ted him al­legedly fond­ling and so­li­cit­ing sex from a 14-year-old girl in a Ben­s­alem Town­ship motel room.

Of­ficer An­thony Dat­tilo, 36, of the 7200 block of Gillespie St. in Ta­cony, has been sus­pen­ded from his du­ties in the 2nd dis­trict and will be fired from the force after 30 days, Phil­adelphia po­lice said in a prin­ted state­ment.

Dat­tilo is a sev­en-year vet­er­an of the de­part­ment.

Ben­s­alem po­lice al­legedly found Dat­tilo in a room at the Lin­coln Motel in Tre­vose with the vic­tim and her 21-year-old cous­in at about 12:30 a.m. last Wed­nes­day. Dat­tilo al­legedly had paid the wo­man for sex and was touch­ing the girl in­ap­pro­pri­ately mo­ments be­fore po­lice ar­rived.

Ac­cord­ing to a news re­lease from the ar­rest­ing agency, po­lice went to the motel look­ing for the teen, whose fam­ily feared had been ab­duc­ted. When of­ficers knocked at the door, Dat­tilo answered it and iden­ti­fied him­self as a 2nd dis­trict of­ficer.

The 14-year-old was in­side the room cry­ing and told in­vest­ig­at­ors that Dat­tilo had “fondled her in an at­tempt to have sex with her,” Ben­s­alem po­lice said.

The wo­man told in­vest­ig­at­ors that she ini­tially had called Dat­tilo by tele­phone and agreed to meet him for sex in North Phil­adelphia. She con­vinced the 14-year-old to ac­com­pany her to the ren­dez­vous, al­though the girl was re­luct­ant, Ben­s­alem po­lice said. The wo­man has not been charged.

As Dat­tilo drove the fe­males to the motel, the girl sent text mes­sages to re­l­at­ives alert­ing them to her loc­a­tion. Dat­tilo al­legedly offered to pay each fe­male $100 to have sex with him.

At the motel, he had in­ter­course with the 21-year-old in front of the girl, then turned his at­ten­tions to the girl, au­thor­it­ies al­lege.

He pos­ted $50,000 bail on Fri­day and was re­leased from Bucks County pris­on in Doylestown. Dur­ing an ar­raign­ment be­fore Dis­trict Judge Mi­chael Burns, Dat­tilo re­portedly iden­ti­fied him­self as the sole care­giver for his dis­abled moth­er and fath­er.

City court re­cords list him as the ar­rest­ing of­ficer in six re­tail theft cases in the 2nd dis­trict since Oc­to­ber.

In re­sponse to news re­ports link­ing Dat­tilo to the fam­ily that op­er­ates Dat­tilo’s Itali­an Deli at 8000 Hor­rocks St. (near Rhawn Street and Bustleton Av­en­ue), own­ers Frank and Siro Dat­tilo an­nounced that the sus­pen­ded of­ficer has no con­nec­tion to the busi­ness. ••